


Raspberry and White Chocolate

by heathtrash



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 02:09:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20202013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heathtrash/pseuds/heathtrash
Summary: Hecate Hardbroom is a young, severe PhD candidate who is focused on her studies rather than her emotions. Little does she know, she has an admirer in the most unlikely of people.





	Raspberry and White Chocolate

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick little ficlet inspired by a writing prompt I saw this morning. Felt cute, might delete later. Hope you enjoy it!
> 
> * * *
> 
> “What a witch!” He spat, sneering at her as she walked away.
> 
> His friend just smiled. “I know. She’s beautiful.”

**“What a witch!” He spat, sneering at her as she walked away.**

**His friend just smiled. “I know. She’s beautiful.”**

Hecate bristled as she strode away from the lecture theatre. She had just presented a research seminar on queer interpretations of some classical works, drawing out some apparently uncomfortable conclusions for her audience of lecturers, professors, and her fellow postgraduate students. She was used to gruelling questions that came from the floor, being in a somewhat controversial field of study, but this time had been particularly draining, despite her best efforts to remain cool and impenetrable. “Witch” was a new one, but possibly one that fitted her often acid tongue, severe presentation, and disregard for the standards of beauty imposed upon women since time immemorial. The further away she walked from the Morton building, the more delicate she felt and in need of the solitude that awaited her at home with her cat Morgana.

She ascended the steps towards the university arts centre, which in the early evening light shone like a beacon with the provocatively red sunset over the Irish sea reflecting in its glass front. Hecate had unfortunately arranged a meeting after the research seminar with a committee member of the university reading society. She debated whether to cancel as she walked past the pottery exhibition towards the café. It would be highly improper to cancel at such short notice, but she really wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be discussing her involvement in next month’s reading society book review event. Above all else, she did not wish anyone to see her in her current delicate state, but she would have to rally for the sake of assisting in the reading society event, in which she was to essentially oversee a group of undergraduates with their book club. And for that she definitely needed tea.

Hecate stepped up to the counter. There was no queue at this time of day, since most students had fled campus for their drinking haunts. “Gaf i baned o de du, os gwelwch yn dda?” She asked in perfect Welsh. Hecate didn’t get much of an opportunity to speak the language outside of her Welsh classes, but she knew that most, if not all, of the staff employed at the arts centre were bilingual.

Collecting her tea, Hecate found a seat overlooking the sea view in the largely empty seating area. There were a few individuals eating, a harried-looking parent with a few very young children, and suited white-haired academics allowing their booming laughter to carry a little to far. Hecate checked her phone while she waited for her tea to achieve the optimal drinking temperature. One message received. _Sorry to do this so late-notice, but could we do this another time? Something’s come up. _

Of course this would happen just as she sat down. Hecate supposed she might as well catch up on some reading while she was here, since abandoning her _paned_ would be a waste of good tea. She grudgingly admitted that it was, on occasion, beneficial to change one’s workspace. She took out a notebook, pencil, and what can only be described as a tome from her dark leather satchel.

As she smoothed open the heavy hardback theory book, a shudder went through Hecate as if someone were approaching her from behind. She tilted her head and saw a blonde woman in her peripheral vision, whom she recognised as sitting beside one of the most obnoxious of her critics.

“I’m awfully sorry to bother you,” said the blonde woman, whose brown eyes glinted with golden highlights in the sunset. “I’m Pippa Pentangle, in my first year of my PhD. I was at the seminar you gave, Queering the Classics?”

“I—” Hecate awkwardly began. How did one say _go away and leave me alone_ in as nice a way as possible? “If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them in an email.”

“Oh, it’s not about the seminar specifically,” the other woman said with a smile, putting down her plate of what looked like one of the café’s raspberry and white chocolate muffins—a treat far too sweet for Hecate’s palate, though she had often admired them from afar—and a steaming mug of milky tea, before inviting herself to a seat at Hecate’s table, to Hecate’s utter shock. Pippa continued naturally, as if Hecate’s discomfort were invisible to her, “although I am absolutely fascinated by your work and I’m quite jealous you get to elbow into such a stuffy old field and wave rainbow flags in old white cishet men’s faces, I’m mostly intrigued by, well—you.”

Hecate’s expression turned from bewildered to suspicious as she sipped some of her tea. She inspected the woman’s bright pink tailored shirt and silver necklace and pondered whether this Pippa was in fact, _not a heterosexual_, or more likely, one of those enthusiastically supportive curious straight women who teased her into feeling flattered until they quickly admonished her of the belief that they were actually interested in her in that way. The concept of anyone genuinely finding her attractive was completely alien to her. “What do you mean?”

Pippa twitched a hesitating smile. She brushed a tendril of her long, loose blonde hair behind one of her ears. “Well, I— I have to admit— wow, this is a lot more difficult than I imagined.”

Hecate stared at the woman with a piercing gaze. She wished she had checked her phone before coming to the arts centre at all.

“I suppose I’ve become something of a fan of yours,” Pippa said, picking up her fork in her graceful hands and attacking her muffin. “Oh my goodness, this is just glorious,” she said after swallowing her mouthful. “But really, I’ve been following your research. I read the paper you published, Sapphic Ghostings in Woolf? I adored it.”

“You said this wasn’t about my work,” Hecate said cautiously, trying not to let the praise of her work go to her head.

Pippa shook her head hastily. “It’s not, I promise. I— well, it started out with that. But then I realised how— how beautiful you are. And how I’d love nothing more than to get to know the real you, the woman behind the academic essays.” Hecate almost choked on her tea. Pippa was blushing pink across her cheekbones. “I know that sounds so cheesy.” She hesitated, searching Hecate’s astonished face, who was entirely at a loss for words. “I’m sorry, perhaps I shouldn’t have— not in this way—”

Hecate was overwhelmed. On the one hand, she did not deserve such a compliment from someone like _her_. Or anyone. She had never sought to associate beyond academic circles and had always avoided the student societies unless in a professional capacity. But at the same time—Hecate was struck by her honesty, the little of her bright personality she had gleaned from the way she gushed over a simple muffin. This Pippa Pentangle, whom she did not even know—and yet, even as those golden brown eyes flicked up to meet hers, she felt the anxiety leftover from the violent questioning she suffered earlier begin to untwist from around her diaphragm.

“I’d better go,” Pippa said, clattering down her fork in a fumble beside her unfinished muffin and standing to leave.

“Wait—” said Hecate, and Pippa looked around, the hint of tears swimming in her eyes. Hecate wasn’t entirely sure what was possessing her to say such a thing. It wasn’t pity; it came from deeper within her chest. “Perhaps— you could stay. If you still want to.”

Pippa’s shadowed face caught a glimmer of the sunset as her expression softened in surprise. “Why?”

Hecate fought to retain eye contact in a battle against her own apprehension, consenting to allow a little of herself to show through her dark eyes. There was something about this Pippa Pentangle now that caused her closed heart to spark with warmth for the first time, and an almost imperceptible smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I’m not sure, but somehow I find you quite— bewitching.”

**Author's Note:**

> Welsh translations
> 
> _Gaf i baned o de du, os gwelwch yn dda?_ \- Can I have a cup of black tea, please?
> 
> _paned_ \- cup
> 
> * * *
> 
> This is set in my old university in Wales where I lived and studied for 8 years. The sunsets over the Irish sea were just so romantic and I couldn’t resist setting this scene there, especially in the arts centre where they did indeed have the most scrumptious of muffins.
> 
> The Morton building is not a real place, but is named after Morton Hall from Radclyffe Hall’s _The Well of Loneliness_, for no reason other than the fact that I just wanted a name and that was the first one that came to me. Bonus queer reference!


End file.
